The Week Unwrapped: Africa alert, ticket touts and the words of the year

Olly Mann and The Week delve behind the headlines and debate what really matters from the past seven days. With Mariana Vieira, Arion McNicoll and Leaf Arbuthnot.

You can subscribe to The Week Unwrapped wherever you get your podcasts:

• Spotify
• Apple Podcasts
• Global Player

In this week’s episode, we discuss:

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

South Africa terror alert

When the US issued a warning about the threat of a terrorist attack in the Sandton area of Johannesburg last weekend, it seemed to take the South African government by surprise. The alert coincided with the country’s pride march, which was due to pass through the neighbourhood in question – and which went ahead without incident. The US has declined to provide any more detail about what it thought might happen or why. So is this a helpful way to disseminate intelligence?

Ticket prices

Despite the pervasive cost-of-living crisis, one part of the economy which seems to be immune to the slump in consumer confidence: concert tickets, especially those sold at vast mark-ups by touts. In one particularly extreme example, tickets for Adele’s sold-out residency in Las Vegas have been changing hands for £40,000 – more than 30 times their face value. Elsewhere, even the official ticket costs at Glastonbury have prompted complaints after a rise of more than 20% on last year. What is causing these spiralling prices?

Words of the year

Collins dictionary has unveiled what it believes is the word that sums up 2022: permacrisis. Has this year really been more crisis-ridden than others in living memory? And can any year be summed up in just one word. We survey what other countries have nominated as their recent words of the year and consider which recent choices have stood the test of time.